50 years ago, the then president of the United States, estimated that with such rapid advancement in technology that in the not too distant future, the average American would work no more than 4 days a week. A decade later, other estimates by congress indicated that by the year 2000, we would need to work no longer than 14 hours a week…
What the heck happened?!
It is said that today we live in a nanosecond culture, in a world obsessed with speed.
Rather than slowing our lives down as promised, technology and industry has only increased our need to be one step ahead of the competition. We speed up our schedules, cramming more and more into smaller periods of time.
We watch the TV while reading the newspaper and eating breakfast, we race through our work day going from task to task exactly as dictated by our precise schedule, we eat our INSTANT noodles for lunch, crank out our 6 minute ab workout when we finish work, eat our dinner while sending emails and catching up on what we didn’t finish at work, then if were lucky, spend a few minutes with your partner or your child before getting into bed and setting your alarm clock ready for the next morning.
We have become enslaved by time! What’s the first thing you do when you get up in the morning? If you’re like 99% of people, the first thing you do is look at the clock! If its too early you go back to sleep, or if its too late you make a B-line for the bathroom.
Most importantly we have gotten into the mentality that we will live the highest quality of life by doing everything at light speed, by cramming as much as possible into each day, by opting for quantity over quality. Trouble is, in many cases, that’s not true…
Take for example the statistic from Carl Honore’s book “In Praise of Slow”, that the number one cause of an employee taking time off work in the United States is stress (in other words a feeling of overwork). The time employees take off from work as a result of stress costs the American economy 7 billion dollars in lost productivity!
Are we really getting more done by racing through our days at 100 miles an hour? But it’s not just our work schedule, it’s everything from the way we eat, to the way we make love to the way we commute, to the way we raise our children, to the way we use our leisure time. This urge to hurry permeates every area of our lives, and more often than you would think, to our detriment.
Slowing The Pace
Firstly, I’m not about to advocate slowing everything in your life to a snail’s pace because the truth is that in many cases, speed is valuable. The principle of slowness is about balancing fast and slow and being able to CHOOSE when one is required over the other, rather than being told what to do exclusively by your choice of time piece. Many instances in your life call for a gentler pace, and the benefits of moving at that pace rather than break neck speed can be tremendous. Below are a few examples of time’s in life when speed isn’t always the best option and why.
Food
There came a point in history where the main selling point of a food changed from its delicious taste to the speed at which it could be prepared. I mean really, why do you buy 2 minute noodles, or premade pancake mix? You do that because, while they don’t taste particularly delectable (in some cases barely short of foul), they are easy, and FAST. Further to this is the fact that most people are actually willing to pay MORE for the quick and easy option than the real, delicious, but slower alternative.
Here’s the problem:
The faster a food is, the more unhealthy it generally is for us. Dazzling revelation right? But we just don’t seem to care. Excessively large percentages of the Western (and now even Eastern) world are overweight but it doesn’t matter because at least they don’t have to waste hours in the kitchen right? The interesting question is “Is it really worth saving yourself a few minutes in the kitchen at the sacrifice of your own physical health and well being?”.
Not only that but meal times are a time for conversation, for interaction, for connection with friends and family. If you’re like most people, your lunch (or dinner for that matter) consists of a hurried foray into the nearest store or your kitchen and a meal gulped down in a period of time not really conducive to any level of connection with anyone. It was once said that after a good meal, anything can be forgiven.
Maybe it’s worth considering? Perhaps taking a few extra minutes to cook and enjoy some real pasta with a delicious Italian pasta sauce rather than the premade Kraft alternative packed with chemicals and carcinogens?
Not only can we benefit health wise by eating less super quick food, but we benefit by enjoying food more. We get more pleasure each day! Most of us have forgotten what it’s like to sit and relax and really enjoy a meal. It was once said that anything can be forgiven after a good meal and many believe it to be true. Try it for yourself next time, just sit, relax and enjoy your nice, slowly cooked meal while engaging in conversation with your family or friends. You might even enjoy it…
Driving
This one’s a real and literal killer. More than 3000 road deaths occur each day, world wide. That’s more than the number of people who died in the attacks of 9/11. It is estimated that by the year 2020, road accidents will be the third highest cause of death only to cancer and heart disease! The question is why are we in such a rush? Not only are people dying, but those who are surviving become part of a phenomenon called road rage, impatiently screaming and cursing at other drivers all in a quest to get to their destination more quickly. Even despite the fact that incessant commercials and messages from authorities tell us that if we speed, we will die, we don’t want to slow down!
Interestingly it has been shown in numerous studies that increasing your speed barely gets you to where you want to go more quickly anyway. If you were on a two and a half minute trip averaging 50mph, even boosting your speed to an uncomfortable 80mph would only get you to your destination 90 seconds faster! Is it really worth risking your life for 90 seconds of extra time? And that doesn’t even take into account traffic obstacles like traffic lights that when considered, negate the effect of increasing your speed completely!
Even weaving in and out of traffic has been shown to be fruitless as the varying speed of one lane over another that we perceive generally evens out after a minimal distance.
The message is simple, there is no need, and indeed no benefit for us in driving faster. While its difficult to stop as for most of us it is so habitual, doing so can lead to less stress, and less chance of death! Good enough reasons for me.
Work
Most of us think that more hours equals more productivity and greater success in our work life. While up to a point this is true (after all we don’t see too many lazy people who are successful), past that point it is horridly untrue. Working too much and not having work well balanced with other areas of your life can be disastrous not only to your productivity but to your health.
When we work (for the majority of people) we are mainly using only one half of our brain, the logical and analytical, problem solving left brain. Trouble is in doing so we stifle the creativity and imagination of the right brain, that when accessed can provide new ideas, new methods or new insights that can make our work hugely more productive. Many people find that after taking a short break and going on a small walk for example, they return to their desks with a completely new energy and find they can process information more easily, solve problems more efficiently and more.
What’s more, working past the point where you’ve had enough only puts you in an awful mental stage of frustration, anger even depression to the point of considering suicide for about 15% of Britons. In this state your work is dramatically lower in quality anyway, and taking time to be away from work at that point would have proved to allow you to get more work done anyway.
Ultimate productivity requires a focused mind, a level of enjoyment of that which comprises your work and a balance between work, leisure, family and so on. In the case of work, more hours almost indefinitely does not equal higher productivity.
And these are just a few. Other areas where speed seem to prevail yet may not be beneficial are our leisure time, love making, even raising our children (the phenomenon of parents wanting to educate their children at the speed of light, reading to them in the womb and using foreign language flash cards as soon as they can talk). It really pays to ask yourself whether or not a certain activity of any area of your life really needs to be done so quickly and if there actually is a distinct benefit in doing so.
Overall, the movement of slowness offers us a call to just relax a little. You don’t have to stop striving, stop achieving, or stop taking loads of action. What you do have to realize is that less can sometimes be more, and you can extract a whole lot more juice out of life by taking the time to just be, and appreciate what is. Striking that fine balance in life between hustle and bustle and slowness can lead to greater health, greater safety, higher productivity, and greater happiness.
Take it easy! ;)
Andrew
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